Curtis Johnson wrote in a message to Roy J. Tellason:

 CJ>  
 CJ>    I sadly have to agree with you here.  It was sold to a German
 CJ> publishing conglomerate a few years back, and the suits probably
 CJ> wanted a fatter margin.  So in creeps an article or two with
 CJ> comparatively little content but an opportunity for pretty
 CJ> pictures, a piece or two less, a slight but noticable dumbing down.

 RJT> That does describe it pretty well.  And it's a damn shame.
 CJ>  
 CJ> I bet you miss Jeard Walker's helmsmanship at the "Amateur 
 CJ> Scientist" (lots of cool projects there then).

 RJT> Yeah.

 RJT> The thing is,  that's happened to so damn *many* magazines,  in
 RJT> recent years.  Over and over again.  It's almost as if the suits
 RJT> you mention are trying to squeeze what money they can out of it,
 RJT> and then when it crashes,  they just walk away. 

 CJ>    What conglomerate publishers don't understand is that quality of
 CJ> a magazine, or ensemble of books, is something that can't be
 CJ> measured quantitatively.  Yet it is quality that draws customers in
 CJ> the long run.

Exactly.

 CJ>    A while back I sold a couple of pieces of nonfiction, and I'll
 CJ> probably be trying again.  One thing I have noticed is that the
 CJ> length range of pieces that magazines accept, as measured by their
 CJ> requirements in marketplace listings by the editor, has nearly
 CJ> halved over three decades.  Some things cannot be adequately
 CJ> explained in three thousand words, particularly if one also insists
 CJ> on background explanation and celebrity-like details.

What publications are you referring to here?

 CJ>    A perfect illustration:  the old _Byte_ vs. most Ziff-Davis
 CJ> computer magazines.   

Heh.  I haven't bought *any* computer magazines for a really long time.

Speaking of magazines,  did you ever read Micro-Cornucopia?  I have a
pretty good collection of those,  watched it go from dealing with cp/m
boxes to pc clone hardware,  and to a bit of a slick format.  Then it
folded.  And it appeared that it folded by choice,  of the guy who was
running it,  rather than selling out to somebody,  which apparently was
being proposed...

I was rather disappointed that it wasn't going to be around any more,  but
in retrospect I can see where he made the better choice.

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